Isn’t it time for a Web 2.0 Blog Aggregator for Nigeria?
Since I started this blog, I’ve been using African social media and blog aggregating sites such as Afrigator, Muti, Amatomu as well as Digg, Stumble Upon, Technorati amongst others. This blog has benefited from the free traffic generated from these great web 2.0 technologies and I’d like to express my appreciation to the creators and founders.
But because this blog is dedicated to reviewing and analysing tech startups and web applications out of Nigeria, it doesn’t also fail to provide useful information about web startups around Africa that may serve as benchmarks for those from Nigeria.
I think I won’t be wrong to say that the only web 2.0 technology (Update: I mean web 2.0 tech related to social media bookmarking and aggregating) that Nigeria has ever brought to the web space to date is Sturvs, Nigeria’s version of Digg. Thanks to sturvs, we now have a voice on the web and can share our stuffs, music & video contents all around the web.
Update: The above statement has been misunderstood by some people and I’d like to point out that what I meant was that Sturvs is the only web 2.0 technology that actually adopts the aggregation model and functionalities found in global bookmarking sites such as Digg, Technorati as well as African bookmarking sites such as Amatomu and Afrigator.
This raises several questions:
- What if there was nothing like Sturvs?
- Should Nigerians sit back and enjoy Kenya’s creativity? or South Africa’s ideas? or even Uganda’s innovations?
- Shouldn’t we start building relationships and partnerships with other African developers and entrepreneurs that would produce ass-kicking web start-ups from Nigeria?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad idea to use other people’s technology, but if we must catch up with these web 2.0 times, we must create our own tech apps that would help us position ourselves better in today’s new web space.
Take a look at Amatomu:
Amatomu is a blog search engine and article aggregator, focusing on blogs published in South Africa. Founded by local web entrepreneurs Matthew Buckland and Vincent Maher in March 2007, the site ranks bloggers and provides charts and statistics for their blogs. It also has the ability to track trends and monitor keywords in the local blogosphere via buzzgraphs.
With amatomu, bloggers compare their blogs by monthly reach, traffic, etc with those of their competitors to find out who is leading on the blogosphere. Amatomu also lists the top 500 South African blogs based on unique readers, posts, links, etc
The question now is: With thousands of blogs by Nigerians, isn’t it time for a Web 2.0 Blog Aggregator for Nigeria?
I think it is. A look at Amatomu will give you an idea of what a real blog aggregator for Nigeria should be. With this picture in mind, we can imagine what the competition would be like for Nigerian bloggers scrambling to be seen and heard on the web space. This could then give birth to a Nigerian Bloggers’ Awards that will reward and recognize top blogs and bloggers from Nigeria.
I’ll be waiting to get the first scoop about Nigeria’s first web 2.0 blog aggregator.
[...] asks, “Isn't it time for a Wb 2.0 aggregator for Nigeria”: I think I won’t be wrong to say that the only web 2.0 technology that Nigeria has ever brought [...]
Isn’t there already this: http://nigerianbloggers.com/ ?
@Temi - Looking at it from a social media analyst/expert point of view, can it compare with SA’s Amatomu or Uganda’s BlogSpirit?
I think we need to raise the standards for our start-ups so they can measure up to world’s standards
I do need that blog entry on world standards @Loy Okezie
[...] week, I wrote an article here about a Web 2.0 Blogs Aggregator for Nigeria, and this got some reactions from a few social media players. (See comments on the post here). I [...]
@Kayode - Please find it here. Thanks for droping by:-)
Must a blog aggregator be “web 2.0″ ish? See http://naijalive.net/nigerianblogs , the site’s been around for a while now. It appears to have been built from Wordpress.
The problem is that Nigeria seriously lacks core “Developers” in the real sense of the word so we are stuck with modifying already built open source apps. Sturvs was built with Pligg, most (if not all) of Loy’s sites were built with Wordpress.
On the other hand, Amatomu and Afrigator etc seem to be custom applications developed by the owners.
Indeed as far as I know, no Nigerian core web2 “application” today can boast of having been custom built. Even most websites in Nigeria are built from opensource software (Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress etc)
@Great Edo - To answer your question…”Must a blog aggregator be “web 2.0″ ish?”
YES!
“…most (if not all) of Loy’s sites were built with Wordpress”. I only run a tech blog called StartupsNigeria and yes, it’s built on Wordpress like most other blogs in its genre.
Hi There,
I’m searching for a good agregator like what Matthew Buckland and Vincent Maher in March done, can you help me to send me their emails to me so I can contact them ??
Thanks a lot
@Bob - You can hook up with them by visiting their websites here and here. Thanks for dropping by;-)
Oddly enough, Oz (mootbox.com) and i have hashed and rehashed this issue over and over again. I continue to wonder what the holdup is, or do the techies not think this would be a ‘profitable’ venture. Nevertheless, I must tip my hat to naijalive.net and even the folks at 9jabook.com and others who are trying to make something happen.
Great post as usual!
Sturvs uses Drupal to power its site- Almost every site is being powered by applications these days its just a matter of knowing what to use for what and then seriously customising it to suit your needs.
I think Sturvs is a great website - in the making. Ditto, Naijalive and NigerianBloggers
The problem for me is that some of these are not as well-marketed as they should be. There should be more online publicity for these services, and Nigerian Bloggers should know that these resources are out there.
The best way to get the word out about these services is if their links are placed strategically around the web, something I don’t see happening a lot. It takes lots of digging around to be able to find some of these sites and it doesn’t help.
@Person: Sturvs uses Pligg not Drupal. Pligg is an opensource clone of Digg